The invention relates to a process for making multi-layer cream-filled wafer blocks.
Wafer blocks are known in the food and biscuits and confectionery industry as intermediate products for mechanically produced wafer products. Among the various known wafer products are cookies and confectionary, for example, wafer cones, wafer cups, wafer plates, flat wafer discs, hollow croissants, wafer rolls, ice cream cones, filled wafers, ice cream wafers, wafer slices small cream filled wafer bars and the like. Wafer blocks are also known as a starting product for filled wafers, ice cream wafers, wafer slices small cream filled wafer bars and the like. All these wafer products are bakery products made from a wafer batter and having a crips, brittle and easily breakable consistency.
The individual kinds of wafer products differ from one another in the type of manufacture. Thus, some wafer products are baked in their final form, as may be the case, for example, with wafer cones, wafer cups, wafer discs and the like. In the case of other wafer products, a wafer sheet or an endless wafer strip is first baked; and, in a baked but still soft state, the wafer sheet or strip is shaped into its final form. In this form the wafer product cools and assumes its crisp, brittle consistency. Examples of this are ice cream cones, hollow croissants, wafer rolls and the like.
For wafer products made from wafer blocks, several wafer sheets are baked, for example, in an automatic baking machine, cooled, coated with cream and formed into a stack The cream-filled wafer block obtained in this way is then cut into small handy pieces of equal size. The resulting product then comes onto the market, packaged in units consisting of one piece or several pieces and, if appropriate, also packaged in an air-tight manner. Examples of wafer products of this type are cream wafer biscuits or cookies.
The various wafer products can be provided with coatings such as, for example, of sugar or chocolate, or can be filled, for example, with edible ice, various creams, chocolate and the like.
Wafers of the present invention may at times be referred to as "waffles", but waffles baked in a waffle iron are to be distinguished from the above-described wafer products. The waffle iron product is a soft baked product analogous to a bread roll or pancake and, therefore, has no similarity at all in its consistency and usability to the above-described wafer products.
The invention, in particular, relates to a process for making multi-layer cream-filled wafer blocks, in which process cream-coated wafer sheets are conveyed in a first plane to a stacking point, where they are raised into a second plane and attached from below to the already raised part of the wafer block. Each coated wafer sheet is first pushed under that part of the wafer block which is held in the raised position, and then is raised. The wafer block thus formed is removed in the raised position from the stacking point.
In a certain process of this type, the wafer sheets are conveyed in succession to the stacking point on a single conveyor belt. On this conveyor belt, those wafer sheets which are to be provided with cream are coated by the contact coating process, the wafer sheets being conveyed away, spaced from one another, under a coating head located above the conveyor belt. When a wafer sheet is to remain uncoated, the conveyor belt is lowered, and the wafer sheet runs through under the coating head without contact therewith and is brought uncoated to the stacking point. Cream-filled wafer blocks can be made in this way if the cream can be applied to the wafer sheets by the contact coating process, since it is possible, in the contact coating process, to convey coated and uncoated wafer sheets on the same conveyor belt.
There are, however, creams which, because of their consistency, can only be applied to the wafer sheets by the film application process, or it is desirable for other reasons to apply the cream by the film application process. This may be the case, for example, when a further layer of cream is to be applied to a first layer of cream. In the film application process, the wafer sheets lying adjacent to one another on a conveyor belt are coated with cream by a film of cream being drawn off continuously from a roller by means of a blade and deposited onto the wafer sheets which are guided past underneath the roller by the conveyor belt. A belt located behind the conveyor belt and running at a higher speed separates the coated wafer sheets lying adjacent to one another, so that a sufficiently large distance arises between the wafer sheets to permit subsequent stacking. This belt, which runs at a substantially higher speed than the conveyor belt conveying the wafer sheets lying adjacent to one another under the cream application device, delivers the individual wafer sheets at intervals to a stacking device.
In the case of wafer sheets coated by the film application process, it is necessary either to deliver the covering sheet separately or to keep a wafer sheet free of cream by other measures.
There is also a process in which each wafer sheet is first raised in the stacking device and, as soon as the next wafer sheet is in position under the raised wafer sheet, the raised wafer sheet is allowed to drop onto it. In this process, although each wafer sheet is raised to form the stack, the raised wafer sheets are lowered onto the coated wafer sheet lying underneath, and the wafer sheets combined in this way are then raised again. The covering sheet is then deposited from its own conveyor belt onto the already assembled wafer block. Since the descent of the already raised wafer sheets before the next raising of the stack represents an additional process step, requiring a certain period of time, the efficiency of this process is limited.
In another apparatus for making cream filled wafer blocks by means of a single cream application device, the wafer sheets are coated with cream by the contact coating process on a feed belt before entry into a stacking device. They are then subsequently introduced into a vertical conveyor which consists of two screw tracks rotating about vertical axes. Uncoated wafer sheets are obtained by lowering the feed belt, since there is then no contact between the cream application device and the wafer sheet. However, this is not possible in the film application process, since the film is, of course, not interrupted by lowering the feed belt. Consequently, such apparatus cannot be used for making wafer blocks consisting of wafer sheets coated by the film application process.